Interior of 16 South Charlotte Street

Category

Library Item

Item no

8916

Title

Interior of 16 South Charlotte Street, Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace

Artist / maker

Hill, Robin A.

Date

1965

Size

12.7 x 9 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

Alexander Graham Bell was born at 16 South Charlotte Street in 1847. He was educated at the Royal High School and Edinburgh University, before emigrating to Canada in 1870. He moved to Boston in 1871 to teach at a school for the deaf. The following year he began researching methods to send several telegraph messages simultaneously over a single wire, which led him to construct the first telephone. Intelligible speech was first produced on March 10 1876, and the first long-distance call was made in August that year. He established the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, and was technical adviser until the early 1880s, by which time he was more interested in other areas of research including optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics. He died in 1922 on Cape Breton Island, Canada.

South Charlotte Street is situated close to the West End of Princes Street in Edinburgh and connects it to Charlotte Square.

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Banisters

Architecture > Architectural features > Doors and doorways

Places > Edinburgh areas > New Town

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

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